Description:
Deer Dance. Abel Sanchez, ca. 1929.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 8: The little pueblo of San Ildefonso, that has produced a long catalogue of artists, claims this very interesting, arresting painter whose studies of dance ceremonies are amazing feats of visual memory. Some are masterpieces. He is particularly interested in horses and horse races, and paints them with fine craftsmanship and with good action. He is himself more than ordinarily proficient in riding; they call him the cowboy of Pueblo artists. He shows much originality in his designs and is not influenced, so far at least, by American white painting. Ogwa-Pi belongs to the older generation of painters who received much notice in the press a couple of decades ago. He was born in 1899; all his life he has remained closely associated with his people. In 1931 he had an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art. The same year, he won the first prize in Gallup at the Inter-tribal Fair with a painting of a magnificent and splendidly barbaric Navajo woman with a girl and three sheep. He has a mural in the dining room of the Santa Fe School. Yale University, Stanford University, the Chicago Art Museum, Omaha Art Museum, and others have all acquired examples of his work for their permanent collections. (Collection, Oscar Brousse Jacobson) Map references: San Ildefonso Pueblo (N.M.)